Pffeeew... my very recent upgrade to 8GB was definitely a good thing. It was just becoming too unplayable. But I bit the bullet and tried some "AMD-only" DDR2, which worked just fine (although it seems slower than my former one).
I lost a few FPS in some games, but it's nice not to leave with swap's damocles sword. I don't mind background apps being moved to swap (that's what it's for), but not games that are in the foreground.

I think we definitely need an easier way to configure zram and zswap.

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Nice review, I love rally games. Unfortunately, I tend to suck at Dirt (or anything codemaster). Maybe those realistic sims aren't for me?
I will practice on Grid before getting this one.

@Liam, I love how you followed the instructions a bit too literally on this one:
https://youtu.be/QdOHlQ8Qbkg?t=42 [External Link]

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Quoting: skinnyrafWith Vulkan becoming mainstream, SteamVR about to be released and the next Debian stable release round the corner, can we expect a new SteamOS release and a new push for Steam Machines soon?

SteamOS releases are pretty much in sync with the Debian releases. They already push "experimental" (SteamOS-dedicated) packages, such as their radv build. So, I wouldn't expect a brand new SteamOS release, but I wouldn't be surprised if they did a new SteamOS push in a few months (or 1-2 years), as it looks like they keep pressuring some publishers a bit.

Wait and see. And participate, of course :)

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Quoting: LeopardSome people say Blender is a very good editing program,which covered with rendering software id.

No, Blender is a very good operating System, just like Emacs :P

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Quoting: STiAT@Shmerl is right, game developers could have perfectly well built their own shader disk cache.

Looking at the patch, if it is really essential for many games, I really wonder why it wasn't implemented earlier. Maybe they just had too many other issues to fix, but this patch is .. pretty simple. Or maybe they assumed that games would do their caches on their own anyway (I'm sure Croteam does this "because they can" :p).

Oh, don't worry, it took more than one patch :)
Those patches have been sitting on the mailing list for a long time (2014, IIRC), and only recently did the developers pick them up. I guess they had other priorities, such as feature enabling and performance improvements. This is mot strictly speaking a performance improvement, but it can reduce loading times and stuttering (only in a few special games in the latter).

However, this is only a GLSL/TGSI cache, not an actual binary cache, if I read this correctly. That means there might be some more room for improvements here. The one for radeonsi is coming a bit latter, I don't think it is planned ATM for R600g.

As for rocket league, most of my problems (including loading time, audio problems, etc) were solved recently. It might be due to an update or to me upgrading from 4GB of RAM to 8. I think it definitely made a difference for the sound, since I get a lot less garbage out of my speakers since this RAM upgrade (tip for PulseAudio users).

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Quoting: bubexel

Quoting: TheRiddickVR is not targeted at the average users except in the case of PS:VR, there is no expectation that people with mid range pc's will experience VR. Also VR only needs to render 1 image, those rendering 2 images have just not moved on.

1 image? what you talk about? it's stereoscopic and 90 stable frames per second. 4k in VR is just a dream atm. Maybe with foveated rendering. But actual VR HMD's doesnt have it.

I think he's talking about multiview technologies, that allow for example to process a vertex shader only once for both eyes. The GPU needs to support it, though. It is also more complex (read: almost? impossible, AFAIK) to do with the fragment shader.
But there are numerous difficulties to overcome with this (stereo reflections come to my mind, though multiview can end up being faster, albeit more complicated, AFAIK), so it also has a cost.

There are a lot of techniques that can boost rendering speed, but we are not going to see state-of-the-art graphics at multiple-K (say, 8 per eye) resolution any time soon, just because the state of the art will progress with GPU power (and resolution increase is quadratic). But we will probably see current-gen graphics on those. Plus, artists always try to use the limitations creatively, which can be a plus, in the end.

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That's very nice, and I wasn't expecting it so early.

Now, I need moar monies... :P

Both to upgrade my computer, and to buy a headset. I think it won't happen anytime soon.
But this is still early adopter stuff. I fully expect the hardware to be better and cheaper in a few years.

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Quoting: HollowSoldier"This newer game engine will be using Vulkan and it sounds like a big win for Linux"

Vulkan too, or Vulkan only? The game is ancient, people bought it according to ancient system requirements and may be playing it on ancient PCs. Getting a surprise update after the beta, that locks them out wouldn't make them happy.

They stated the following on the big steam thread the other day.

1. Vulkan too. OpenGL will stay supported for the foreseeable future; only dx9 was removed [1]
2. This isn't an update, this is a new "Serious Sam Fusion" game that will appear in your library, that will allow to play every Serious Sam game/level you own with all the new goodies (splitscreen, Vulkan, updated graphics, etc...). With original gameplay IIRC. [2]

[1] https://steamcommunity.com/app/41070/discussions/0/451850849186806043/?ctp=8#c133256758576805333 [External Link]
[2] https://steamcommunity.com/app/41070/discussions/0/451850849186806043/?ctp=9#c133256758578372665 [External Link]

Lots of repetition in that thread, but those links can back the claims I made.

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So, did the developer finally decide if colonists constantly falling in love with inanimate objects was a bug or a feature? :P

I'm looking forward to this game. I will still probably wait a bit before buying it, though. Plus, I have to finish my backlog of games that's piling up...

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Quoting: Whitewolfe80Wine is great DX9 support is pretty damn good right now native is def better but wine is not a terrible option.

Heck, sometimes wine is better than native windows :P
The wine project itself is quite impressive...

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